What do the nation’s top producers know that you don’t? How did they achieve their top-producing sales success, and what secrets can you learn from them to follow in their footsteps? These are significant questions — and at first glance you might think they are unanswerable.

Every top producer has his own “kit,” right? They each have their set of unique skills, contacts and “tools of the trade” that let them dominate their market in unique and individual ways.

When you’ve worked with as many successful agents as Julie and I have, however, patterns begin to emerge. Over time, we’ve put together some fundamental principles that the top producers all seem to share, regardless of whatever idiosyncrasies each of them might employ in their unique ways.

That’s right — not surprisingly, success has a pattern, and by studying it, you can beget success in your business by modeling your actions after others.

We recently discussed this series of 15 key success secrets of the top producers on our radio show, “Real Estate Coaching Radio.” We shared how you can implement these secrets in your real estate business to achieve greater success and financial reward.

So, listen to the episodes above, and we’re going to break down for you all 15 of these key points — which we’ve outlined for you briefly below:

1. Show up.

Don’t just be physically present — be mentally and emotionally present as well. Being present probably means taking control over your daily schedule and ensuring you have proper rest and nutrition.

2. Follow up.

Follow up relentlessly and professionally — or as we tell our students, use “fast and furious lead follow-up.” Remember, when it comes to follow-up, the faster you respond to incoming inquiries, the more likely you are to get the sale. That’s just a fact.

3. Be versatile.

Be able to say yes in a variety of situations, while working with a variety of people, not just those who you “hit it off with.” You can learn more about this by studying the DISC personality types and working on your scripts and objection-handlers to be able to deal with how different personality styles communicate.

4. Be creative in your solutions.

Don’t ever give up. Rigidity costs you money, so learn to be a master of the art of the deal.

5. Recognize that repetitious boredom pays off.

Keep in mind that it rarely pays off on the schedule that you want it to, but if you’re taking the right actions in the proper order, then you’re putting money in the bank for future success. So stick with it.

6. Never practice “self-agency.”

The more people you help, the wealthier you will become. Stick to your mindset of service, and always stay focused on how you can be of the most service at the highest level to others.

7. Be the best at what matters.

Make the commitment to be the best at the things that make you money in real estate: lead generation, lead follow-up, prequalifying, presenting, negotiating and closing. Get great at those things and the rest falls into place.

Always strive to perform at your best, and always challenge yourself and your team to perform at the highest level possible.

9. Systematize and automate before you hire people.

It’s your business, so build the systems your way, and ensure that they work efficiently, and then bring in others to help. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting money training others to do things the wrong way or pushing them to do things they just aren’t trained for at all.

10. Adopt best practices versus reinventing the wheel.

There’s always a lot of change, new ideas and emerging technologies in real estate, but the fundamentals of our sales profession haven’t changed in a very long time. Seek out models of success and emulate them where you can. In real estate, they abound, and from experience we can tell you that today’s top producers all employ lessons from yesterday’s pioneers.

11. ABC — always be closing

Closing for the appointment, the sale, the contract, etc. The fact that someone has given you their time is a good indicator of interest. Now follow that up with decision and action.

12. Focus: Follow one path until successful.

Yes, you’ll need to refine your skills over time. But don’t just change focus all the time, or you’ll never have given any of your strategies enough time and effort to determine whether it’s working for you.

13. Be committed to your practice, don’t have one foot in and one out.

As long as you’re holding back, then you’ll never be entirely investing your time, effort or energy into truly being successful. There is no “try” in real estate, only “do or do not.” (Yoda-like, right?)

14. Answer the phone.

Be ready and available to serve your customers when they reach out to you, not hiding from their calls or always unavailable. If everyone who attempts to reach you always gets your voice mail, they’re going to think you’re not interested or simply too busy to help them. That’s a recipe for disaster, so learn how to pick up when somebody calls.

15. Don’t be a secret agent.

Don’t be ashamed of being a real estate agent — proudly tell others what you do, how you help people and how you can help them. Use your profession as a conversation starter — you’ll be surprised at how many deals appear naturally from conversations as you learn to share confidently with others why you love helping them with real estate sales.

Top producers have used these 15 principles and found enormous success in their businesses, and we hope you do, too.

Tim and Julie Harris have over 20 years’ experience in real estate. Learn more about their real estate coaching and training programs at timandjulieharris.com, or tune in to Real Estate Coaching Radio every weekday at realestatecoachingradio.com.